


Family Ties

by sabradan



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Supergirl (TV 2015), The Flash (TV 2014)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28323387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabradan/pseuds/sabradan
Summary: Barry and Iris had always wanted children, but...not like this. This was something completely different, and totally unexpected. But sometimes, the most unexpected things bring you the happiest outcomes. Flash/Arrowverse family-centric fic starting from S05 onward. I suck at summaries. Includes larger Arrowverse.





	Family Ties

AN1: Hello and welcome to my Flash/Arrowverse fanfic. This one has been in the works for a while now, and its finally getting uploaded! For those of you who know/follow my writing from my Chuck fanfic, fear not, Chapter 10 of Rescue Me *IS* coming, it is being re-written now as we speak. I'm sorry I've had a lot of things going on in my personal life the past few years that prevented me from writing. Hopefully I'll have more time/inspiration moving forward.

AN2: I don't own any of the characters, settings, etc that you recognise. Everything you recognise is owned by their respective owners, corporate partners, etc and I make no profit off of this, it is simply for fun.

AN3: This will be an AU fic and will probably go off the rails. Don't me. I've aged Nora down a bit because I want this story to focus more on the family dynamic than romance (though there will be plenty of Barry/Iris and several other couples' fluff don't worry). Since its Arrowverse, expect crossover character appearances. This will start immediately after Nora's appearance in the S04 finale, and will be a rewrite of everything that comes after, so all cannon starting S05 is being disregarded.

AN4: English is my third language, so please poinnt out mistakes so I can get better, but please be kind. :)

Happy Reading!

Chapter 1: Parenthood

Barry Allen hadn't really thought that much about being a father. Well, he had thought about it, of course, he was only human. Well, metahuman, technically he thought to himself, but who's counting. Regardless, the thought of being a parent hadn't crossed his mind particularly frequently.

He was extremely lucky. In the past year alone not only had be both gone - and been released from with full exoneration - to prison for a crime he didn't commit, but with the help of Team Flash they had saved Ralph Dibny and brought him into the fold, Cecile and Joe had just had their baby, Jenna, and most recently, they had against all odds defeated DeVoe and his dastardly plan to revert humanity back to the Stone Age. He had great friends who might as well be family. He had a family that loved each other deeply. And he had Iris. His Iris. Iris West-Allen, his wife. The love of his life, his best friend, the woman whom he had been head-over-heels in love with for nearly his entire life.

He was happy. He was content. Life was good. There was no need, in his mind, to go rushing into things like parenthood; for now, he and Iris could just enjoy being young and married and in love - in between being integral members of Team Flash, of course - without other things complicating matters. Which was why he had nearly freaked earlier before he had opened the door when Iris had told him that they were next: it wasn't like the idea of settling down and raising a family hadn't slipped into his thoughts every now and again, but he'd just never thought about it seriously. He just had always imagined that when they decided to bring a child into the world, there'd be a little bit more planning and discussion involved. He had hoped that when he became a father it would be a bit later in life, when the world was safe - or comparatively safe, at least - and Central City didn't need him to be The Flash. So he could focus on his simple, normal career as a CSI, and on being a good husband and father. One who was there for his family and didn't have to be worried about being called away from things to fight Gorilla Grodd or Zoom or any of the others he and Team Flash had despatched in the past several years. Of course, the world - or even Central City - would never truly be safe, and he knew that. Central City would always need The Flash. And the few occasions he and Iris had had serious conversations about children and the future, she had told him as much as told him that waiting for the "right time" would just mean that they'd never have kids; it was never going to be the "right time" knowing what their lives were like. He'd ceded her point, but he still was adamant that now wasn't the right time.

And of course babies were expensive, and whilst he and Iris were financially secure enough to be okay on their own, who knew if that would still be the case with all the expenses babies brought with them? To say nothing of his deep seeded fear that because of his own trauma with his own family, despite the best efforts of Joe West, he wouldn't be a good dad, and…

Calm down, Barry! Get it together! He chastised himself mentally. You're freaking out again

Of course, that was all a bunch of wishful thinking. Nothing more than a bunch of shoulda-woulda-couldas that bounced around in his head, now. The smallish newcomer into the home of Joe and Cecile West put those thoughts to bed quicker and more directly than he had ever thought possible, them evaporating from his brain and off his tongue like puffs of smoke, with her news that hit him - and probably everyone else in the room as well - like ten tonnes of bricks.

"I'm your daughter...Nora...from the future," she - Nora - had said, clearly trying to feign assertiveness and confidence in a situation where she felt neither, "and I think I've made a big...big...mistake"

Daughter.

Future.

Daughter. From the future.

Nora.

His mother's name was Nora.

Barry's eyes widened, almost imperceptibly, but enough to be noticed by those closest to him: Joe, Iris, and apparently, Nora, who was his daughter from the future.

Not that he should be surprised, of course. He and Iris were very much in love and did hope to one day start a family of their own, that much at least they had already talked about; and in his tenure as The Flash he had become intimately familiar with time travel and its many pitfalls, but knowing these things intellectually and having the evidence literally look him in the eyes - to have his clearly-teenaged-but-not-quite-adult daughter from the future standing in his father-in-law's living room at a party to celebrate the birth of the newest member of the West family...to have his own daughter from the future literally staring him in the eyes a minimum of several years before she would be born was another thing entirely.

Mistake.

Big Mistake.

She had said something about making a big mistake, and with his intimate knowledge of time travel and the speedforce and parallel universes and the like, he knew that this wasn't good. She was in trouble. His daughter from the future was in trouble and she was revealing herself now to them - to him - to the only people she knew she could trust - her parents and family - because she was in trouble and needed help.

Trouble.

Nora.

Daughter.

Help.

"Babe? You okay?" Iris asked, concern for her husband etched on her kind face, as she closed some of the distance between them, placing the two champagne flutes she was carrying on the closest side table.

"Yeah...yeah, I'm fine, I just…" Barry said, trailing off.

All of a sudden the room began to spin. Slowly at first, but gaining speed at an alarming rate, with no uniformity or common direction, making his vision blurry and his peripheral vision disappearing to barely more than a muted black smudge on either side of his vision. His breath came in more quickly now than it should have for his normal resting heart rate. His breaths came more and more in quick, short bursts that the scientist in him knew wouldn't provide him the necessary oxygen to his brain and blood. He tried to correct his breathing as best he could, but to no avail. The world began to spin faster and faster, he noted briefly with irony that being a speedster didn't make him immune to such things when it wasn't him initiating the speed, until everything in his vision became a muted black-and-grey smudge and he fell to the floor with a thud and a crash, unconscious.

Nora and Iris were the first to notice. It was most likely due to some combination of their proximity, the fact that both women had been looking directly at him when it happened, and that the others were all at least partially preoccupied. Or maybe it had to do with some sort of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo about these two women in Barry's life having an intrinsically deeper connection with him by virtue of being his daughter and wife, respectively.

Regardless, they were the first ones to see him fall, and to cry out to him as they rushed to his side.

"Dad!"

"Barry!"

Their nearly-instantaneous and simultaneous cries got the attention of the rest of the assembled crowd, with Joe, Cisco, and Caitlyn following quickly behind Iris and Nora in rushing to where he lay on the floor, prone, having just barely missed making significant contact with a glass side table and lamp in the corner near where he had stood just moments previously.

Both Nora and Iris had spent several moments each trying to wake him up, to no avail. It was Caitlyn, ever the pragmatist - let alone trained medical doctor - who had succeeded where they had failed. After Nora and Iris' shaking failed to rouse him, she sprung into action.

"Out of the way, please," she said, pushing her way through the small crowd of worried friends and family. "Iris….Nora, is it?" she asked tentatively, waiting for the girl to nod in affirmation before continuing,

"Iris...don't worry, it'll be okay. Nora, your Dad will be just fine," she said, reassuring the other women as she made her way to her friends' prone body. "Please, give him some space, he needs some air," she said, and the group as one took several steps back, so as not to accidentally cause any harm or worsen his condition.

"Barry? Barry, can you hear me? Barry, its Caitlyn, and I need you to wake up now please"

When he was still unresponsive, she withdrew a small medical examination flashlight from her purse, carefully pulled back the eyelid from each of his eyes as she shone the light into his eyes individually, checking his dilation, reaction time, reflexes, and light sensitivity, all of which appeared to be completely healthy and normal. Noting this, she cocked a half-smile, before speaking.

"I'm sorry about this, Barry," she said, before pulling her hand back behind her body to build force and momentum, and slapping him hard across the face.

That did the trick.

Barry immediately sprung up to a sitting position with a start, spluttering and stammering in shock and surprise. Once he caught his breath after a few moments and saw the mass of concerned eyes gazing at him from the faces of his friends and family he breathlessly asked

"What happened? And...why is my face sore?"

"You fainted, Barry," Caitlyn said matter-of-factly. "And I woke you up"

"By slapping me?"

"It worked, didn't it?"

"You know smelling salts work just as well, right?!"

"Yeah, but I didn't have any of those in my purse," she said, with just the slightest sense of smugness - she may have enjoyed it just a tiny bit - in her voice.

"But what...what happened? Why did I...oof" he began, but the wind was knocked out of him before he could finish his sentence, as a smallish, brownish blur launched itself into his chest and hugging him tightly around his chest and waist, almost as if she would let go he would disappear.

"Dad! Dad! Are you okay, Daddy?"

Oh. Right. THAT was why he fainted. Nora. His daughter, Nora. From the future. Who time travelled back to his time, had gotten in some trouble, and now needed help.

"Oh, uh...yeah. Yeah, I'm alright...kiddo," he said, in a voice that he hoped was only a little bit awkward, returning her hug with one arm and stroking her hair and the back of her neck reassuringly, and without conscious thought, almost completely on instinct.

They sat like that for a few moments more, Nora clinging onto him - just slightly tighter than was absolutely necessary - and he trying his best to pretend he knew what he was doing in how he reassured her, until Joe stood and walked over to them and spoke.

"Come on, Nora," he said, in a kind, effortless, grandfatherly voice, as he offered the young girl his hand and helped pry her off her father's prone form and help her to her feet. "Barry...I mean, your Dad...is just fine, why don't you come help me in the kitchen so Caitlyn can help your dad, eh?"

"Huh?" she said, distractedly, almost as if she barely heard him. "Oh...oh! Yeah, right. Uh...sorry, Dad," she said, taking Joe's proffered hand and using her hands to brush off particles of non-existent dust from her clothes as she finally stood upright. "Yeah, okay, sure Papa Joe...sorry, Dad"

"Don't worry about it, Nora," Barry said, chuckling ruefully at the behaviour of the girl as Joe - her grandfather he mentally noted to himself, still adjusting to this very new reality - led her gently by the shoulders towards the kitchen, and whispering something about cake.

The kitchen was average-sized, but well-appointed, but most importantly, even though it was directly adjacent to the room where all the commotion had been happening, thanks to its swinging door, it was quiet, and somewhat private.

Joe wordlessly led Nora inside and left her standing in silence at the island in the middle in the room as he continued on towards the fridge, which he immediately opened and wordlessly searched through its contents until he found what he was looking for, and retrieved it.

Turning back towards Nora and the island, he carried a plastic-wrapped half-eaten cheesecake that he knew was going to go bad in a few days if it didn't get eaten - it wasn't his fault, he'd been in the hospital with Cecile and Jenna for the past week when he wasn't helping Barry and Team Flash - and two cans of Cherry Coke. Wordlessly, he withdrew two plates, two forks, and a knife which he used to cut slices off the wheel of the cake and place onto the plates which he then carried to where Nora - his granddaughter! - was standing awkwardly.

As he placed the cake and drink in front of her, her eyes lit up and smile broke her face and she looked much less like a Speedster worried about the problems out there in the world, and very much like a child excited by a surprise from her grandfather. He smiled internally.

"Cheesecake and Cherry Coke? SHWAY," Nora said. "My favourite, thanks Papa Joe," she finished before wasting no time in grabbing the fork and digging in to the sweet treat. Her smile simply got larger as the cake entered her mouth, and her eyes fluttered near-closed as she did a subdued happy dance as she stood in place.

That reaction - so normal, so innocent, so familiar - that made Joe switch from smiling internally to externally, his face breaking out into a wide grin as he watched his granddaughter go to town.

"I had a feeling," he said simply. "It was a favourite of your Mom and Dad, too," he said simply.

"Ahguethapafafomathree"

"Don't talk with your mouth full, Nora," Joe scolded softly. "You're too old for me to need to tell you that"

Nora chewed and swallowed the food that was in her mouth completely before speaking again, blushing slightly.

"Sorry, Papa Joe," she said.

"Its alright, Sweetheart," he said indulgently. "Now, let's try that again. What was it you just said?"

"I said 'I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree'," she said.

Joe responded with a short burst of crisp, clear laughter at her response.

"No, I guess not," Joe replied. He began again, in a slightly nostalgic tone reminiscent of a grandfather telling a story - which, he realised, that was exactly what he was in that moment, and he chuckled to himself.

"You know, its funny," he began

"Hmm?" asked Nora, who had returned her attention to the half-eaten cake sitting on a plate in front of her.

"When your Dad, uh...came to live with us…"

"You mean after Granny Nora and Grandpa Henry died"

"Yes, Nora...after they...died," Joe said, mimicking the language Nora used to describe what had happened to her Allen grandparents, much to his chagrin. He thought it odd that she used the word "died" rather than "was murdered" and "was sent to prison unjustly" to describe their fate. He would have assumed that any child of Barry and Iris would have known the truth from a young age: after all, Barry was hardly shy about the truth, and he had always raised them both that honesty was the best policy, and he hardly thought this was a good exception to that rule. Nevertheless, he didn't say anything to rock the boat or to go into more detail. Whatever reasons Barry and Iris in the future had for telling her what they had told her, he was sure they were good ones and he wasn't about to be the one to break her heart and be the bearer of that particular brand of bad news, let alone undue whatever parenting decisions future-Barry and future-Iris had made for their daughter. Especially since he just found out about being a grandfather a matter of moments ago. Nevertheless, he thought to himself, that's something that would be a good thing to remember and come back to at a later date.

"Like I was saying," he said, continuing. "When your Dad came to live with us for the first time, it just so happens that cheesecake and cherry coke was the first thing he ate in this house too"

"Yeah, its his favourite," Nora said. "Mom's too"

"I know," Joe said. "Though I think that may be more of a chicken-and-an-egg question, as far as favourites go"

He continued, pensively, saying

"I just think its kind of funny, is all," Joe said. "That the first meal that first your Dad, and now you, eat in my house is cheesecake and cherry coke"

Nora looked at him pensively for a moment as if she was thinking very intently about what had just been said, before shrugging her shoulders and attacking the rest of the cake.

"And, being a...speedster, I assume that like Barry you have to eat some ridiculously high amount of calories that makes the rest of us jealous…?"

"Mhmm..and its….so...good…" Nora said, with her mouth full, between bites.

Joe just smiled at her indulgently. When he woke up this morning, ready to take Cecile and the baby home for the first time, he thought that he couldn't possibly be happier. He had no idea that by that evening not only would he have a new baby daughter, but also a time-travelling Speedster granddaughter, as well. And Joe, being the doting family man that he was, could barely contain his happiness.

Sure, maybe it was silly. Maybe it was dumb of him to just...believe her and accept her like that, no questions asked, but he couldn't help it. He could tell just by looking at her, she was a West-Allen, no question. The face, the eyes, the hair, the skin tone, the way she walked and talked, her attitude, the way she carried herself...everything about this girl screamed that she was the end result of the love between his daughter and the boy he had raised and loved as if he were his own son. And if he was being honest with himself, he wasn't sure he could remember being as happy as he was right in that moment.

And yes, he thought to himself, sure this particular version of his granddaughter would eventually have to be sent back to her own time where she belonged, to be with the elder versions of her parents...he still loved that he got to meet her, see her, talk with her, and that up until they were able to fix whatever she'd screwed up and gotten things back to how they were supposed to be, he'd get to get to know her, now, however many years from when she would come into their lives, for real.

"So...while Caitlyn's busy patching up your Dad, why don't you tell me what's the big problem?" he asked her. Continuing, he said, "Who knows, maybe your boring old grandpa can help"

Nora put down her fork on her now-almost-empty plate and pulled a face.

"I should have known this was bribery cake and not 'I'm-happy-you're-here' cake," she whinged

Joe laughed heartily and openly at that. Nora frowned.

"I'm sorry, Nora," he said. "I'm not laughing at you," he continued. "You know that, right, Sweetheart? Its just...the way you phrased that, I mean...you gotta admit it was funny"

Nora slowly, begrudgingly smiled shyly at her grandfather before replying.

"Well, its true, I am hilarious," she said

"And humble, too," Joe joked. "Now, you know I'm pretty good at solving problems," he continued, "What with being a detective and all. Why don't you tell me what's going on. I might be able to help, and...even if I can't, I'm sure between me and your Mama Cecile, and your parents, and everyone else, we'll be able to think of something"

"Do I have to?"

"No, you don't have to," Joe said. Respecting boundaries was something he always tried to instill in his children - which, as far as he was concerned, included Barry - and it wasn't something he was going to stop doing now.

He saw the smile creeping onto Nora's face at that answer, and decided to finish his statement before she got her hopes up.

"You don't have to, Nora, but I would hope that you would trust us - me, your parents, your family - to tell us what's going on so that we can help you. After all, that's why you came here, right? For help?"

"Well, yeah, but…"

"Well, then how do you expect us to help if you don't tell us?"

"I mean, well, I…"

"Now, I may not be a super scientist like Caitlyn or your Dad but unless a lot has happened in the next twenty-four years…" he said, doing some basic arithmetic, using his detective skills to determine that she was probably around her early twenties - or at least was presenting herself as such, based on the subtle reaction he noted on her face when he said this - and adding a few more years for her to still be born, before continuing,

"...but unless something major has happened in that time, I'm pretty sure problems still can only get solved when you tell the people who want to help you what's the matter, so that they can help"

"But I'm scared, Papa Joe"

"I know," he said. "It can be scary to be in a new place, I can only imagine how scary and weird it is for you to be here, now, like this," he said.

"No, that's not what I mean"

"Oh?"

"No"

"No, I've been to this time before, remember?"

"Oh, right," Joe said, remembering the conversation they had all had moments before, just prior to Barry's episode. He continued, "True, but this is different"

"It is"

"But this isn't what you're afraid of"

"Not in the least"

"But you're still scared of something"

All Nora could do was nod stiffly.

"What is it, Nora? You know you can tell us anything, we're your family"

"I...I want to but...but I don't know if I can…"

"Nora, if its something with the future-timeline-whatever, I'm not sure if you know this or not, but your Mom and Dad and I have already dealt with that our fair share of times, I'm sure whatever it is, we can…"

He stopped abruptly when he noticed the girl squeeze her eyes tightly shut, as if she were keeping tears at bay, and shaking her head from side to side vigorously.

"No? If its not that, then...Nora...Sweetheart, what is it?"

"I fu….messed up," Nora said, noticing her grandfather's arched eyebrow at her near-slip of language she knew first hand was not allowed in the West household. "I messed up really bad, Papa Joe. Like really, really bad"

"All the more reason to tell us," he said, softly, coaxing it out of her slowly. Like back when her parents were teens.

"No..no...noooo, I don't...I don't think I can, Papa Joe...I messed up like really really bad," she said, unable to keep the brave face on any longer, she threw herself into his midsection, hugged him tightly and cried into his chest, mumbling things he wasn't able to decipher as she went.

For several minutes he just held her as she cried, occasionally rubbing her hair the way he did when Iris was younger, or lightly trying to shush her with calming, soothing, words of support.

"Nora, look at me," he said gently, a few moments after the majority of her sobs had subsided.

Reluctantly, the girl did just that.

"Atta girl," he said. "Now. I don't know what you did or how you screwed up, but it doesn't matter," he continued. "You are my granddaughter, and I love you. Your Mama Cecile loves you. Your parents love you. That family room on the other side of this door is full to bursting with Aunts and Uncles - both real and honourary - who love you and care about you and will do anything they can to help and care for you, no matter what"

"But Papa Joe...I messed up real bad," Nora said softly.

"Did you do whatever you did on purpose?"

"Well, I mean, kinda? I did do it on purpose, but I didn't mean to do what I did, I meant to do something else"

"So, 'no', then," Joe said reassuringly, before continuing.

"So, you didn't do it on purpose...did you do whatever you did maliciously? To hurt someone?"

Nora shook her head no, still clinging tightly to her grandfather's midsection.

"Ok, so then it must have been something unethical or immoral, then, right? If you're so sure we'll react badly?"

"Well, no, but…"

"So it wasn't on purpose, it wasn't malicious, you didn't do it to hurt anyone, and it wasn't inherently immoral or unethical, right?"

Nora slowly nodded.

"Then what's the problem?" he asked, before continuing. "Do you honestly think you could have done anything that was so bad that that room full of your family out there will somehow think less of you, or refuse to help? Because if you think that's the case, I want you to march out there right now and confront them about it. In fact, let me know who," he said, fake-building himself up into a pseudo-frenzy, to demonstrate a point. "I'll give them a good talking to, that's for sure," he said, moving towards the door.

"No, Papa Joe, stop please! Wait!" Nora said, for the first time with some force behind her words since the topic of conversation had moved in this direction.

"Oh, so then you don't think someone in this family would abandon one of our own?" Joe said archly, raising an eyebrow pointedly.

"No…"

"Do you think we'd stop loving you?"

"Well, no, but…"

"Then you have to understand, deep down, that no matter what you did, no matter what happens, we love you and are on your side, and are here to help?"

Nora exhaled in frustration.

"No...I mean yes...I mean...Papa Joe, I messed up big time though"

"All the more reason for your family to help make things right," said Joe, smiling deeply at his own flawless logic. Nora pulled a face.

"You shouldn't pull faces like that, Nora, your face might stick that way"

Nora immediately blew a raspberry at him, before taking a final swig of her cherry coke and her demeanour immediately became somber again as she finally, admitting defeat, told Joe everything.

She told him about Cicada and her missing Dad. She told him about how her Mom kept trying, kept hoping beyond hope that he'd come back. That she kept sending him messages, hoping to bring him home. She told Joe about Cicada and the other Metas who would be part of her Dad's downfall and the reason she had grown up without a father. She told him about the time that she had overheard her mother and Auntie Caitlyn talking to a much-older Papa Joe about time travel and resetting the timelines, and about how she learned to harness her Speedster powers enough to travel back in time. She told him about her plan to come back in time and help defeat DeVoe and Cicada and the rest and bring her father back to them. But she also told him about how her plan had backfired completely, and that instead of fixing the timeline and bringing her Dad back, now she had been raised over the past 5 years by Papa Joe and Mama Cecile, because now her mother was gone too. She wasn't sure if she was dead or simply trapped somewhere in the Speedforce or otherwise missing like her Dad, but all her memories she had once had of living with her mom and trying their best to make due without Barry were for now all mixed up and jumbled in with what she saw as fake memories, of those memories with her mother being replaced by similar memories, but with Papa Joe and Mama Cecile instead. And, on top of that, she told him her real age. Not the age contained on all the fake documents she used in this time, or the setting on the perception filters she was discretely wearing to make her look older, to match the mid-20s age range she was pretending to be.

By the end of their conversation, she had told him everything. He knew it all. He knew that in reality, though she was trying her best to be brave, she was just a scared 15-almost-16 year old girl who missed her parents and was willing to do literally anything, and everything, in her power to get them back.

"That's why you came here," Joe said matter-of-factly. "To see your father. Because you were raised without him"

He held her tightly in his arms, resting his chin on the crown of her head as she snuggled more tightly into his midsection, so as to hide from her the tears that were now streaming down his own face.

"No, Papa Joe," Nora said simply, but for the first time since she entered the house, she spoke in a clear, calm, confident voice that seemed to brook no argument, despite everything. She continued,

"I didn't come here to see my Dad," she said simply. "I came here to save him"

"I promise you, Nora," he said finally, in a voice that brooked no arguments and belied the passion of the old family patriarch.

"I promise you that we're going to save your Dad," he continued. "It was bad enough for your father to have to grow up without his father...I'll be damned if I let it happen to my granddaughter, too"

"No one will judge you for what you did. Not a single person in this family or under this roof would ever think less of you for what you did. So you screwed up. Its normal. Especially for a kid like you in your position, Nora," he said, passionately but softly.

"Christ, You're a scared fifteen year old kid who just wants her parents back, I'm honestly surprised you did as well so far as you did," he started.

"But Papa Joe," she said, still very emotionally fragile and drained, and on the verge of tears again, "I...I...I k-k-k-killed Mom! Dad's gone and Mom's dead, and its all my fault!"

"No!" Joe said, with a force and severity that scared her slightly. He immediately bent down slightly so that he was looking directly into her eyes and softly gripped one of her arms in each of his hands as he spoke.

"No, Nora. That is absolutely, unequivocally, 100% not true, and I don't ever want to hear you say that ever again, you understand me? Nothing in this horrible series events that has happened is your fault. These things are happening to you, and absolutely not because of you. Do you understand me, Nora Francine West-Allen?" he said, emphatically, hoping he could get through to her in this way. He had no idea where or how he knew what her full legal name was, but the moment he had said it it was as if it had always been something he knew, a familiar fact that was easily recalled. He continued,

"This is not your fault, and I promise you, nobody in this family or under this roof will ever blame you for what happened. You may have messed up, but of course you did! You're a kid, and you're doing this all on your own without any help! Of course you screwed up, but you were brave and tried your best, and your heart was in the right place. I mean, look at you, Sweetheart, you ran back in time to before you were even born, to help save your Mom and Dad. If that's not love, I don't know what is," he said, smiling watery eyes at his granddaughter.

Nora slowly dried her eyes and raised her gaze to meet that of her grandfather, the person she looked up to in the world more than anyone else, with the possible exception of her father and mother, and stared into his eyes, defiantly.

"I'm not going home without them. Both of them"

Joe chuckled lightly, smiled brightly at the girl and pulled her into an embrace.

"Of that, Sweetheart, I have absolutely no doubt," he said, continuing.

"If there's one thing I can promise you, sweet girl, its this: I don't know how, I don't know how long it will take, and i certainly don't know all the science-y mumbo jumbo around it, but I am absolutely going to make sure that when the time comes for you to go home, you'll be going home to the future you deserve," he said.

"I'm sure its not going to be easy, but nothing truly worth it ever is - I told that to your Dad more than a few times when he was your age," he added softly as an aside.

"You've got all of us in your corner, here, ready and more than willing to help. Between me, your parents, your Mama Cecile, and everyone else out there...I think our chances are pretty damn good, if you ask me," he said, stage-whispering to her conspiratorially as he continued, "I mean, after all, your Uncle Wally is literally a professional time traveller. So personally, I like our odds," he said.

"I promise you, Nora," he said. "We're going to fix this, together. And if there's one thing you can count on from me," he said, prompting her to finish the phrase.

"Its that a promise is a promise, and you can take that to the bank," she replied, artificially lowering her voice to mimic his, in the way she used to remember doing as a kid back-slash-forward in her time. Time travel was weird.

He held her close in a warm, grandfatherly embrace for a few more moments before eventually, the moment she was dreading had arrived, and he slowly but firmly escorted her from the kitchen to the family room to once again tell her story of what had happened, this time for everyone present.

When Joe and Nora returned to the main family room, it was quiet and subdued. Barry, Iris, and Caitlyn were in the corner near where he had fainted, but he had moved from his position on the floor to a nearby lounge chair, and was sitting up and alert. Cisco was lying across the couch, his head draped over the armrest - still clearly quite drunk - talking quietly to Ralph. Wally was in the corner looking concerned, and Cecile was nowhere to be found, most likely because she had taken Jenna upstairs to get settled in to the new nursery.

When they heard the soft thud of the kitchen door swinging shut, however, they all snapped immediately back to be attentive to the matter at hand; that was, her.

"I...uh...um, hi…" Nora said, already flustered but trying not to show it.

Before anyone could say anything else, however, Iris stood and immediately crossed from her place at her husband's side at the opposite side of the room, towards her daughter whom she could tell - she didn't know how she could tell, but she could - was hurting and in distress, making it across the room in no more than four strides.

Immediately upon reaching the spot where her daughter stood, she opened her arms and Nora practically fell into her mother's embrace, burying her face into her mother's shoulder. She wasn't crying anymore, and she didn't cry again - she had, thankfully, cried all her tears in the relative privacy of the kitchen with her Papa Joe - but she her body was wracked with dry heaving and, after a few moments, spoke some quiet words that only Iris was able to hear, but which Joe and a perceptive Barry could probably have guessed about what had been said.

At Nora's - her daughter, Nora's - behaviour, it was as if a switch had been flipped in Iris' brain. This was her daughter. Her child. Her baby. This young woman in front of her who had quite literally stepped into their lives moments previously was, as far as Iris West-Allen was concerned absolutely, unequivocally, and without a doubt her and Barry's child. A child whom she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, she would do literally anything for and whom she loved, and would continue to love and protect, until the day she died. It didn't matter to her one single iota if this child of theirs had just walked into the house as a total stranger moments before, or if she had come into their lives the normal way, she loved, and cared for, and would defend this sweet child of hers as if she had grown her, birthed her, and raised her from conception to infancy to adulthood. This was her child, no matter what, regardless of the circumstances.

Iris had always been a pretty emotionally supportive, maternal person. She had always known she wanted to be a mother - and ideally, with a big, beautiful, loud, supportive, and loving family, much like the one she had - and she and Barry had talked many times about starting a family. They had decided the last time they spoke that the timing wasn't right; they wanted to have a family together for sure, but they also both felt that they deserved some time to just be themselves. To just be Iris and Barry, two young people newly wed and in love.

Of course, Nora's arrival changed all that. There was no "just Barry and me" anymore. There was no "taking time to just be a young couple in love". It was quite literally impossible. Once she found out that the girl standing in her dad's family room was her daughter - regardless of where in the timeline she was from - that was that. Nora was her daughter, and from that moment on, it was like a switch, and her maternal instincts roared to life with reckless abandon inside her, and there was no going back.

Iris West-Allen may have started that day as a happy, childless, married woman, but from that moment on, Iris West-Allen was a mother.

Nora was her daughter, and she was her mother. She and Barry had a daughter, a little family of their own, no matter how complicated and unorthodox it may be.

And now, for whatever reason, her daughter was frightened, and in pain, and quite frankly had clearly been crying. And Iris West-Allen was a Mama Bear if ever there was one.

As she held her daughter in her arms, she hugged her tight, stroked her hair and back in a way which she instinctively knew would soothe Nora, and whispered quiet words of reassurance, support, and love into her daughter's ear, all the while internally swearing unimaginable pain and vengeance on whoever, or whatever, had caused such distress in her not-so-little girl.

Barry, sensing his cue, stood up from his resting position on the chair, hastily waving away Caitlyn's weak protestations with one hand, as he slowly - since he was still a little weak on his feet and probably would be for another half hour or so, according to Doctor Caitlyn - walked to where his wife and his daughter stood in an embrace. He reached his destination significantly slower than Iris had, but neither seemed to notice. When he was close enough, he knelt down on one knee, since his lanky frame made him tower nearly a full head over his wife, and significantly more than that over his daughter, and embraced them both in a powerful, and what he hoped was protective and loving, embrace.

"Hey," he said, smiling softly after they had embraced wordlessly for a moment. "There's my two favourite girls"

The speed with which Nora shifted her embrace from Iris to Barry nearly gave them both whiplash. She embraced her father tightly, needily, almost greedily and thanks to her semi-kneeling position their heights were similar enough that she was able to bury her head into the crook of his neck, as opposed to his chest as would have otherwise been the case.

To her chagrin and despite her best efforts, the hug from Barry broke the dam on her well of tears for the second time that day, and she once again found herself sobbing quietly into the embrace of the father she had mourned and missed and idolised for so many years in her timeline.

Barry, for his part was, much like Iris, running almost entirely on the wave of parental instincts now flooding his system. Despite never having any hand in raising any children before that point in his life, and despite the fact that he had only met his daughter less than an hour previously, he seemed to instinctually know where to place his hands, just how she liked to be hugged, that stroking her hair and neck always calmed her down, and all sorts of other things that he had no idea how he knew, but was thankful that he did, as he held his daughter in his arms as she cried, as he wife looked on, concern etched on every surface of her face.

More than that, though, like Iris, there was a shift in his personality, like a light switch flicking on. He may have just met Nora a little over an hour ago, but there was not a single shred of doubt in his mind. Nora was his. His and Iris'. She was his daughter, and he was her father; like that, it was almost instantaneous. It was in that moment, as his daughter-from-the-future clutched him tightly and sobbed into his shoulder, that Barry Allen, aka The Flash, accepted the greatest responsibility and most important mantle he knew he ever would. That was the moment that Barry Allen became a Dad.

As she sobbed, Nora was trying her best to talk through her tears and tell him something, but the combination of her sobs and that she was talking about as fast as he could run, he was only able to catch a small fraction of what she had been saying. He was able to make out the words "sorry", "really bad", "please forgive me", "killed mom", and both "Dad" and "Daddy" alternatively.

Barry honestly hadn't the foggiest clue as to what she was actually trying to tell him, but he could recognise the Barry Allen patented self-loathing from a mile away.

"Shhh. Shhh, oh Honey," he said softly, trying his best to soothe and comfort her. "There, there, that's it," he said softly, making sure that he kept her held tightly in his embrace, in an attempt to make her feel safe and secure, whilst running his hand to the back of her neck and back and stroking them softly in a way which he knew - though he had no idea how he knew - would calm and settle her down.

"There you go, Nora," he spoke softly, barely above a whisper so only Nora - and perhaps Iris, if she strained herself - could hear. "Atta girl, there you go, I got you...Daddy's got you…that's right, Nora, there you go...that's my girl…"

Barry honestly had know idea where the comforting words or actions came from, Of course, it wasn't that he didn't want to do the things he was doing; in fact, he absolutely did. He had come to the conclusion that she was telling the truth and had accepted the fact that she was who she said she was and everything that went along with that almost immediately after Caitlyn had revived him. It wasn't that he didn't believe she wasn't his daughter - on the contrary, he knew, deep in his heart of hearts that she absolutely was his daughter. It was more of the fact that this was the first time in his life he'd ever had to take up this fatherly role, and certainly so quickly or directly, and he was, to be honest, completely terrified. He was terrified of doing or saying the wrong thing, or making the wrong choice, or really doing anything that might after the fact negatively affect Nora.

But, despite all his fears and terror, he seemed to know exactly what to do and say, and how to do and say it, because it seemed to work. He hadn't made any conscious decisions, but seemed to be acting almost entirely on paternal instinct, but that instinct sure made the right call. He wasn't sure how or why, but so far at least he seemed to be operating completely on his newfound paternal instincts to protect and comfort his daughter, and shower her in all the love she deserved in the world, and thus far at least, those instincts seemed to serve him well.

"Shhh. There ya go, Nora. Atta girl, Honey...there's no need to cry, I promise, come on dry your eyes, shhh…" he said, softly and in as encouraging a voice as he could muster as Nora's sobs and heaving began to wane and her voice and breathing began to normalise once again.

Slowly, after a few long, agonising minutes, Nora's breath normalised and heaving sobs stopped, and she took a few long, halting, shaky breaths in an attempt to re-centre herself. As she did so, Barry pressed a soft, fatherly kiss on her forehead, noticing the smiles that had surreptitiously crept onto both Nora's and Iris' faces at that decision, before he continued,

"Nora," he said softly, before starting again.

"Nora, you know that this is all very...new...to me. To us. To all of us," he said, indicating first Iris, then everyone else in the room who had, for the majority of this tableau, the good grace and decency to at least pretend to be involved in doing other things and not focus entirely on the enthralling episode unfolding before them.

"But that's the thing about being a Speedster and dealing with time travel multiple times before," he said, softly chuckling half to himself, before continuing.

"You really learn to sort of just...roll with the punches...as far as this kind of thing is concerned," he said, continuing. "Your mother and I...we hadn't exactly planned on having you be in our lives for at least another couple of years yet, but here you are," he said, the timbre of his voice barely containing his emotion as he spoke.

"Here you are, in the flesh. Nora West-Allen, our daughter. My little girl. And look at you," he said, holding her at arms length to get a good look at her - the first real, proper, good look at her he'd had since she gate crashed their party - and smiled.

"I barely know you yet, Nora, and you already remind me so much of your Mom," he said, smiling at her. She smiled back shyly in response.

"Except for that smile," he added quickly. "That smile's all me," he added with a touch of pride.

"I don't know what the future holds, Nora. About that, only time will tell. But I do know one thing about the future," he said.

"What's that?"

"I know that between your Mom and I, we must've done at least one thing right, because we made you," he said, smiling indulgently at her as the smile that spread across her face threatened to break it in two.

"And you've clearly got all the best qualities of your mom: smart, resourceful, determined…"

"Not to mention some of your father's best traits as well...smart, kind, empathetic…," Iris chimed in from Barry's side, whilst simultaneously rubbing the upper part of her daughter's arm - where it connected with the shoulder - in a way that she somehow, inexplicably, knew would calm and relax her daughter .

"You've got all this family surrounding you here, who love you and will support you and help you and protect you, no matter what, no questions asked," Iris continued, motioning with her eyes the assembled remainder of the family that was gathered around them: Joe and Cecile, Wally, Caitlyn, Cisco, and even Ralph Dibny.

"So, what do you say, Honey? Do you think maybe you're ready to tell us what happened? What you think you did and why you think you're in such big trouble? After all," Barry said, in what he hoped was a positive, encouraging voice "if anyone's an expert in fixing problems in the timeline, its your old man," he said, chuckling slightly at his own self-deprecating humour.

"I...I,uh...I guess...ugh, OK, fine," Nora said, still clearly frightened about what the response that she would receive would be.

But she told them anyway. She told them everything. Every minute detail, even moreso than she'd told Papa Joe moments before in the kitchen - not by much, of course, it wasn't like she had been withholding information from her grandfather, she just gave more information this time - about everything that had happened. The full and complete story, as much as she knew and was able to tell and relay about what had happened, why she was there, and how she's accidentally made things even worse. She told them everything, she poured it all out to them, baring her soul as if daring them to go back on their words to love and honour and protect her no matter what.


End file.
